A Geographic Information System (GIS) provides the capability to capture, store, analyze, manage, and present data associated with geographic object items and attributes of the geographic object items in relation to a geospatial topology database, typically via a geospatial mapping interface. Some mapping applications, such as Google Earth, allow for quick access to geographic object items in relation to a geospatial topology database—but without a structured format for geographic object items. That is, Google Earth provides the capability to present geographic object items in relation to a geospatial topology database, but with a different approach than a GIS. For example, geographic object items are typically loaded into Google Earth through a Keyhole Markup Language (KML) format file. KML files contain data in a generally unstructured and free form. In KML, many types of geographic object items or features (i.e., points, lines, polygons, images, tours, etc.) are mixed together among one or more folders. As understood in the art, the organization of geographic object items in KML files is limited. In this case, the unstructured nature of the KML format limits the ability of a user to perform analysis, editing, and spatial display and representation.
Thus, when a user interacts with a mapping application operating with geographic object items in an unstructured form, the user may not be able to easily select all geographic object items of the same type, for example, to analyze them. Similarly, when interacting with an unstructured mapping application, the user may be required to update attributes of a plurality of geographic object items of the same type individually, rather than simultaneously as a group. Further, the user may not be able to add a new attribute to the plurality of geographic object items easily. In the context of these examples, the limitations of unstructured mapping applications is apparent. Accordingly, there is a need in art to convert unstructured geographic object item data into structured formats to facilitate follow-on analysis. Embodiments described herein are directed to addressing the deficiencies of and achieving improvements over the above-discussed unstructured mapping systems.